DREAM CATCHERS

The exhibition Dream Catchers, which presents a selection of authentic works by twenty authors of the unconventional art scene of Serbia and Croatia, was officially opened on Friday, November 18, in the Gallery of the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Jagodina. This exhibition was created in cooperation between the Museum of Contemporary Art from Zagreb and the Art Brut Serbia association, after the Zagreb presentation in 2020. The exhibition "Dream Catchers" includes a cross-section of the contemporary artistic marginal - outsider and art brut scene from Croatia and Serbia and is the first such project and the beginning of cooperation in this field in the countries of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. It was created in cooperation with the Association Art Brut Serbia (ABS), which, since its establishment in 2014, has been involved in the discovery of new, "invisible" creators and talents, and their inclusion in social and cultural-artistic life. The exhibition presents marginal artists, some of whom are exhibiting for the first time, and who, despite the time in which they live and create, managed to escape from established artistic frameworks and retain a distinctive artistic language. All Serbian artists at the exhibition are members of the Art Brut Serbia Association, which was started eight years ago by Goran Stojčetović. A member of the marginal scene himself, Stojčetović is one of those trained artists who found his artistic expression in art brut. There are also works by Jasna Damnjanović, Bojan Đorđević Omča, Marjan Đarmati, Kejta Woznicki, Dragan Stanimirović, and Danilo Spasović Denke, who are known to Serbian audiences from the underground scene and group exhibitions of ABS. Joškin Šiljan is one of the few artists whose expression belongs to outsiders, and he has gained a reputation on the art scene. Radovan Popović is known as a cartoonist and initiator, and the founder of several art festivals and platforms. 11 Croatian outsiders are also represented at the exhibition, some of whom have already exhibited at MSU Zagreb - Krešimir Hlup, Božidar Štef Golub, Gojislav Kalapač Goja, Margareta Vidmar and Eksos Lucius Ido, Simon Petkovich and Dubravko Sertić. Darko Brajković performed the performance "Bit(i) Sculpture" at MSU. Petar Brajković exhibited a lot in Germany, but was unknown in his homeland. Elvis Burton is not an unknown name on the scene, but now for the first time, we are looking at some of his works in the context of outsider art. Ivan Švalj is new, so his alter-ego, Lutka Zvonka, will continue to be represented at exhibitions. Ivana Bašičević Antić, director of the Museum, pointed out at the opening: "The exhibition itself, in addition to being the result of international cooperation, which means that it gives a wider context to the artists involved, and to us as the audience, to look at contemporary practices, at the same time it brings us back to the question: What is a margin? Is that term appropriate? Or, perhaps, it is in itself a path to a great delusion". Dimitrije Tadić, adviser for contemporary visual art and multimedia at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, said, among other things: "We think that cooperation in the region is always implied and that by the nature of things it goes by itself, but it is important that we continuously work on it, and I thank are on this type of initiative. It's great that the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb is involved, and those professional contacts are something that is very valuable for all of us." Daniela Bilopavlović Bedenik, the author of the exhibition and manager of the Collection of Marginal Art of MSU Zagreb, said at the opening: "This is an exhibition that was presented two years ago at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the midst of the pandemic. Unfortunately, we didn't have the chance to officially open, but I think we're making up for it now with this opening. I am especially glad that we started working with Goran Stojčetović, an artist who also exhibits here, and who is the president of the Art Brut Serbia association. I think this is now a nice continuation of cooperation, which I am sure will continue." The exhibition was opened by our prominent actress Katarina Žutić, who read a text by Oto Bihalji-Merin about Serafin Lui, a naive artist from the beginning of the 20th century. "This text is extremely important for us and for today's exhibition, and it actually refers to the fate and status of almost all artists that we can look at today," emphasized Ivana Bašićević Antić in the announcement of this speech. After the opening of the exhibition, a large audience had the opportunity to follow the professional guidance of the author Daniela Bilopavlović Bedenik, which included artists from Serbia and Croatia - Goran Stojčetović, Katie Woznicki, Bojan Đorđević Omča, Joškin Šiljan, Marjan Đarmati, Margareta Vidmar and Exos Lucius Ido.